Guild Wars 2

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen!

In this guide I’ll explain my take on a PVE Shatter mesmer and how it should be played (in general lines).
Please leave your (nice) comments below!

—WHAT IS SHATTER—
Shatters refer to the Mesmer’s core mechanic which takes all your active clones/phantams and destroys them to create the selected effect.

• F1 MIND WRACK
  Mind Wrack is your main damage-shatter as it deals flat damage, use this after your first Diversion shatter (when enemies have Vulnerability or you have Might, but more on this later).

• F2 CRY OF FRUSTRATION
  Cry of Frustration is a shatter we don’t use as it mainly applies Confusion.

• F3 DIVERSION
  Diversion is your main control-shatter as it dazes the clones’ target and interrupt when they are casting a skill, giving you boons or causing Vulnerability depending on your build.

• F4 DISTORTION
  Distortion is used when you’re about to die or you cannot make it out of red circles fast enough.

—SHATTERS AND YOU—
Despite what alot of other guides and people say, Shatter builds are viable in PVE as long as you have a reason to Shatter.

What this means is that your plan should not be to simply spam clones and hit F1, you should have a clear plan and purpose to why you shatter and how it benefits you.
This guide uses 2 varieties of the same core build (0/20/0/0/30) that both give players a reason to use shatters.

—HOW TO SHATTER—
One mistake people often make is that they limit themselves to only 1 shatter while, depending on your build, all 4 could be useful.

Our rotation should focus on creating illusions and use F3 to gain what we want from these builds (boons or vulnerability) then start creating and shattering using F1.

IMPORTANT: Defiant does not mean a boss can not be dazed! Do not forget that by using F3 you try to daze a target 4 times, meaning you will consume 4 stacks of Defiant!

—UTILITY SKILLS, HEALS AND ELITES—

• UTILITY SKILLS
  “You should not play Shatter Builds because they take all your Utility slots” — FALSE.
  Shatter Mesmers are NOT limited to only using Decoy, Mirror Images and Blink.
  Mirror Images is a great skill, it gives you easy clones and is a stunbreaker but if the situation really demands it, you can get clones different ways,
  Decoy is mainly a pvp/wvw skill and in my opinion no PVE Mesmer should ever use it.
  My utility skills usually consist of: Mirror Images / Signet of Inspiration / Feedback and I rotate between Feedback and other Utility skills depending on the situation.

• HEALING SKILLS
  There are 2 great options and to decide what to pick you should try them both yourself.
  ETHER FEAST is a great skill as it deals alot but it has a 20s cooldown and requires you to have illusions up when using it in order to make it decent.
  MIRROR heals you for less but only has a 15s cooldown and doesn’t require you to have or do anything, in fact it makes you reflect projectiles while healing!

• ELITES
  TIME WARP use this whenever, whereever and however — it’s just awesome.
  MASS INVISIBILITY can be used while running through dungeons.

—ARMOR—
Armor for PVE Mesmers are generally very straight-forward: get damage!
One thing to keep in mind is that you’ll be in melee range alot, and the difference between a Zerk Warrior and a Zerk Mesmer is roughly 300 armor which you could and probably should be compensating for. Getting a healthy mix of Berserker’s and Knight’s pieces are not uncommon and how to mix them is up to you!
I use this mix.

—WEAPONS—
A good Mesmer knows his/her kitten nal and adapts to the situation — throughout combat he/she should change his offhand and occasionally his second weaponset.
My main sets are Sword MH & Sword OH and a Staff.

• GREATSWORD
  Greatswords are a secondary weapon and are used primarily in longer fights against condition-immune foes. Illusionary Wave can be used to interrupt foes.
  Mind Stab deals roughly the same damage as a Spatial Surge, making throwing it whenever you can not the best option — instead throw it when clearing groups or boons.

• STAFF
  Staffs are a secondary weapon that are used to get out of red circles quickly thanks to Phase Retreat and to cast Chaos Storm, which has a chance to daze foes.
  Chaos Storm can also be used to boon up your party and the defensive possibilities of this skill should not be forgotten.

• SCEPTER
  Scepters are a primary weapon that are used in fights where you can’t get close but still want to create alot of clones fast. This weapon is rarely used but is still viable in some situations.
  Don’t shy away from Scepters, Ether Clone still packs quite a punch with decent gear.

• SWORD MH
  Swords (MH) are a primary weapon that are used as your main source of damage through Blurred Frenzy and Mind Spike. It can also be used to quickly create clones and cause Leap finishers thanks to Illusionary Leap
  Shortly after Shattering your clones, you can still use Swap on the ‘corpse’ of the Illusionary Leap clone.

• SWORD OH
  Swords (OH) are a primary weapon that are mainly used to daze enemies using Counter Blade and create an extra Phantasm to shatter.
  Illusionary Riposte also blocks damage taken by some, if not most, traps.

• FOCUS
  Focuses are a primary weapon that are mainly used to interrupt enemies using Into the Void and to block projectiles using the Phantasmal Warden.
  Though very useful, an offhand Sword will always be a better option if you don’t need to block projectiles because of the shorter cooldown on it’s key skill.

• PISTOL
  Pistols are a primary weapon that are mainly used to stun and daze enemies using Magic Bullet. Phantasmal Duelist takes a long time to cast it’s skill and mainly slows down your rotation.

• TORCH
  Torches are a primary weapon that can be used if you really want a replacement for Decoy and/or a Blast finisher but it’s abilities don’t benefit us too much. Note that even if you break the stealth, the Prestige’s Blast will still occur.

—BUILDS—

• VARIANT #1 (The Boon Shatter)
  This build uses the Bountiful Interruption trait and Signet of Inspiration to gain boons when interrupting enemies then spreading them to your party.
  Link

• VARIANT #2 (The Vulnerability Shatter)
  This build uses the Illusion of Vulnerability, Dazzling and Rending Shatter traits to spread Vulnerability when interrupting enemies.
  Link

—IN CLOSING—
In closing I would like to thank Osicat for his Shatter Cat series as it has been a great inspiration and every build can be traced back to it (I simply took the libery of explaining it a bit more and how it works in a PVE enviroment)

If you have any comments or questions feel free to contact me!

Why don’t you use the traits that boost Mindwracks damage and critchanche?

You could use them if you really wanted to, but personally the other traits outshine extra damage on 1 of your 2 shatters and the crit chance is fine as it is if you have berserker’s gear.. I easily have about 50-60% crit chance so the extra 10% from the trait doesn’t improve the potential damage more than getting a extra mindwrack on 50% hp would..

Does that make sense to you / did that help you?

Hm okay, I’m fine with the crit, but 20% dmg is a big number. How hard does your current trait hit on interupts?

But, tbh, Illusionary Ellasticy is not that awesome either. This one I would swich for Precise Wrack.

Hmm that’s a good one, indeed.. I shall play around with that.
Also, I use the boon variant because I enjoy it more ^^

Im so happy im not the only using shatter in PvE. Thanks for the guide Waffles

How do you handle phantasms? When I tried a shatter build I allways felt like “hm I shouldn’t have shattered my warden, his attacks would have dealt mroe damage” :s

Tried it now for a several dungeons (vuln variant), (using mostly SW/SW and Staff) and the build is a lot of fun to play if you get bored of the old style and like me, you just love the visuals of the staff.

And while both the boon stacking or vuln are very good and easy to apply, I keep having to deal with issues like: No more reflect on focus, my own damage is dependant on shattering illusions, whom tend to die pretty rapidly in PvE situations. And my big damage dealing on demand (which normally isn’t that needed since you buff 4 partymembers) is kind of lost if you get into a sticky situation where your members are down.

Not to mention that all the dodging and displacement (staff 2) make it a pain to use in dungeons where people want you to stack. I try to use scepter/situational offhand instead on those places, but I never really have that feeling like this is a good idea

And of course the biggest problem: condition immune targets, there aren’t a lot of them, but if you have to deal with them (gates, turrets, ect) no matter which weapon I switch to, without all the phantasm buffs, I don’t really feel I can deal enough damage.

But besides all that, this is a very solid build with exceptions on those few spots in dungeons where you wish you could dual-trait. XD

Too many flaws. Too many misconceptions. If this is how you play shatter in PvE, you actually waste a lot of the potential it offers.
I am too tired and it is too late to write about all the flaws, but right now, 10/20/0/25/15 is sooo far superior to whatever shatter build can offer, that it would be a waste of time anyways.

My way of playing Shatter is by thinking that ALL mesmer setups is a mesmer that can shatter. It does not matter if I am traited to be a pure phantasm dps machine; there is still times where using shatter will actually improve damage and / or burst damage. The key is to know when it is a loss to shatter over letting the phantasms stay on, and often times it is better to focus on other things. It greatly depends on whatever encounter you are in as well. The less threatened your phantasms are the less point to shatter, unless you absolutely need the blur of course.

So yes for me Shatter is a core class mechanic, but it’s not a thing I liberally spam. It is a thing I use when needed and am glad that it is there if I do need it.